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Key test looms in Indonesia's peace deal in Aceh

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 September 2005, 03:14 CDT

By Jerry Norton

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - Former rebels in Indonesia's Aceh will start handing in guns this week as elite police units begin pulling out, kicking off a key phase in implimenting a landmark peace deal ending 30 years of civil war.

Decommissioning of weapons owned by the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) begins in the province on Thursday under the eyes of an international team of monitors following the August 15 peace deal.

"So far, conditions in the field are very good. All those GAM members that have been released from prison have been granted amnesty by the government," Information Minister Sofyan Djalil told a news conference in Jakarta.

"Former GAM now sit in the coffee shops."

Hundreds of Acehnese rebels have walked free from Indonesian jails since the end of August under the sweeping amnesty that formed a vital plank of the peace deal signed in Helsinki by GAM leaders and Indonesian government negotiators.

In total, some 2,000 GAM members are expected to be released, although the actual number so far freed is not clear.

The peace deal was agreed after GAM gave up its demand for independence in tsunami-devastated Aceh, effectively ending three decades of fighting that has killed an estimated 15,000 people.

In return for laying down their arms, laws will be changed to allow rebels to form a political party. Former fighters will also be given land and help with re-integrating into society.

The massive earthquake and tsunami on December 26 left 170,000 people dead or missing in Aceh alone, helping push the rebels and government to the negotiating table.

Djalil said that the first phase of the collection and destruction of weapons due to start on September 15 would involve around a quarter of GAM's arsenal.

Nasirudin Bin Ahmed, a GAM representative, said on Tuesday that 210 weapons would be handed in during the first phase, making the total number of weapons held by an estimated 3,000 active rebels around 840.

POLICE SENT PACKING

"In the MOU (memorandum of understanding) GAM came up with the number 840. Because we don't have the exact number we cannot challenge ... but the military are very comfortable with that number," said Djalil.

The minister said once the first phase of weapons destruction had been verified by the military and Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), 25 percent of government troops would be withdrawn.

Around 1,300 members of the police mobile brigade would be withdrawn by ship from Lhokseumawe on Aceh's northern coast on Wednesday, a day before the decommissioning, Djalil said. Indonesia has more than 30,000 soldiers in Aceh, as well as significant numbers of paramilitary police. The final withdrawal under the Helsinki peace agreement will leave Aceh with 14,700 soldiers and 9,100 police.

AMM spokesman Andre Cholz said weapons decommissioning should be complete by the end of December.

He said there were currently around 200 monitors from European and Southeast Asian countries in the province, and that would increase to 230 by September 15.

Around 20 monitors, wearing white T-shirts, baseball caps and cargo pants, arrived in Aceh on an early flight on Tuesday.

Djalil said the government was confident the peace deal would stick, despite criticism from some nationalist lawmakers that it was too lenient on the rebels.

He said the destruction of the tsunami meant both sides were committed to making peace work, even though two previous deals in recent years had collapsed in renewed fighting.

"Overall I am very optimistic," he said.

(Additional reporting by Dan Eaton in Jakarta)

Source: REUTERS

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